Student Works

The earliest extant work by the young Mahler is the opening movement of a
Piano Quartet in A minor, which was probably performed at the Conservatory
on July 10, 1876, and given its first public performance in Jihlava on
September 12 of the same year, Mahler playing the piano on both occasions.
The first modern performance of the movement was given in New York, on
January 12, 1964 played by Peter Serkin and the Galimir Quartet. (There is also
a fragment of a scherzo in G minor).

While there is a definitely dark, brooding quality to the movement, there is
nothing in it which really points to the Mahler we know from the mature
symphonies and song cycles. There are several recording of the quartet
movement available.

Also apparently dating from 1876 is a Symphonic Prelude in C minor, which
was discovered as recently as the 1970s, in the Austrian National Library. The
actual score is a piano reduction, by a Heinrich Tschuppiuk, described on its
title page as "from the year 1876...supposedly by Anton Bruckner" which had
been copied "by the Bruckner pupil Rudolf Krzyzanowski" (Mahler's friend at
the conservatory - the two collaborated on a four-hand piano version of
Bruckner's Third Symphony, with which the composer was very well pleased).

Some musicologists have suggested that the work is that of a much younger
composer than Bruckner (who would have been 52 in 1876) and, because of
his friendship with Krzyzanowski, Mahler has been suggested as the author.

The Prelude certainly sounds more like Mahler than the quartet movement -
and, in my opinion, more broodingly tragic than anything by Bruckner; one can
easily, for example, hear pre-echoes of the opening movement of the
Resurrection Symphony within its six-minute span.

The Prelude, as orchestrated by Albrecht G匀sching, has been recorded only
once, by Neeme J绂vi; unfortunately it is the filler for his ridiculous (albeit
successful) attempt to lower the world speed record for the Sixth Symphony.